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usually funded through the Grant Mechanism unless they lead to policy change for tobacco control.
WHO provides technical support to applicants by drafting and reviewing project ideas and full proposals, as well as provides support
during the project implementation process. In addition, the Grant Mechanism has established the Rapid Response
Advocacy grants in order to help meet unanticipated needs where there are identifiable benefits associated with rapid funding and where action cannot
wait the normal grant application and funding process.
3. The Bloomberg Initiative in the South-East
Asia Region
The South-East Asia Region is particularly affected by the tobacco epidemic. It is both one of the largest producers and largest consumers of tobacco and
tobacco products in the world. Out of 5.4 million annual global deaths, 1.2 million deaths occur in the Region. Recent surveys have shown that the
prevalence of tobacco use among youth and health professional students are alarming, and there is also a huge prevalence use of bidi and smokeless
products.
Tobacco control programmes in countries of the Region face serious impediments due to inadequate and weak infrastructure, legislation,
regulations and Acts, and lack of both financial and human resources as well as frail mechanisms to enforce existing tobacco control measures.
Although countries in the Region are committed to tobacco control and to the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control FCTC, the tobacco industry exerts considerable pressure and influence on economic and political issues of most countries; often
conveying misleading economic arguments against effective tobacco control.
To overcome this situation, WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative TFI in the Region is focusing on supporting national capacity building for tobacco
control; supporting advocacy to develop tobacco control programmes based on the WHO FCTC; supporting countries to develop tobacco control
measures, including a national strategy and plan of action, legislation, other
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measures and guidelines for enforcement, promotion and compliance; promoting multisectoral collaboration; promoting education, training,
communication and public awareness; promoting advocacy, surveillance, research and sharing of information; and supporting partnership
development among governments, donors, NGOs, national foundations and collaborating centres. Efforts have been made to implement a series of
surveys such as the Global Youth Tobacco Survey GYTS, the Global School Personnel Survey GSPS and the Global Health Professional Students
Survey GHPSS using standard protocols. However, the absence of a standard protocol for an adult tobacco survey has been a weak spot for the
Global Tobacco Surveillance System GTSS.
Since the inception of the Bloomberg Initiative, the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia is providing regional and in-country leadership to
use the opportunity provided by the Initiative for strengthening national capacity for tobacco control as well as monitoring the progress of
implementation of the Initiative. The Initiative is expected to supplement and complement the regional tobacco control efforts and also to support
countries to effectively implement the WHO FCTC. In early 2007, it was agreed that the BI activities in the Region would be in accordance with a
seven output workplan, which was used as an umbrella for country workplans of Bloomberg-focus countries in the Region. The outputs are as
follows:
¾ An effective national coordination mechanism and structure for tobacco control;
¾ An approved National Action Plan NAP for tobacco control including a plan for sustained funding for tobacco control efforts,
supported by a broad coalition of governmental and nongovernmental organizations;
¾ Active engagement in the grant mechanism; ¾ A system of monitoring and evaluation of tobacco control
policies and the Global Tobacco Control Report GTCR; ¾ A surveillance system to measure trends in exposure to tobacco
and its smoke and to measure the impact of tobacco control policies – Global Adult Tobacco Survey GATS;
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¾ Generation of economic analysis for advocacy and policy settingcapacity building for countries in the area of taxation; and
¾ World No Tobacco Day. In order to implement the BI workplan, the Regional Office
successfully negotiated with WHOHQ and of the total amount of funds available under the agreement between the World Lung Foundation and
WHO for staffing and capacity building, US 3.1 million was allocated for SEARO activities, the largest sum allocated to a single Region. In addition,
US 4, 63,500 was allocated to support the cost of surveillance, staff and activities in the Region under the agreement between CDC Foundation and
WHO. Also, an amount of US 81,000 was mobilized for collection of datainformation for the WHO GTCR.
As a first step, SEARO ensured that Regional and country staff was increased in order to properly implement BI activities. The TFI team,
originally composed of 10 staff members working at the Regional Office and country offices, was enlarged with three international professionals,
10 national professionals, five national and 12 State consultants India, and six support staff. Besides, a Project Officer and a Surveillance Officer were
recruited at Regional level and one surveillance officer in each of the country offices. Thus, the South-East Asia Region became the first WHO
Region to have a full team in place. The team operates under the direct technical and administrative guidance of the Coordinator for Tobacco
Control.
4. Implementation of the BI workplan in the
